After months of waiting with eager anticipation, The Office finally premiered last Thursday. The synopsis from tv.com:

In the hour long season four premiere, Michael hosts a Fun Run for the Scranton Business Park. A freak accident leads him to believe the office is cursed, and he questions his employees’ religious beliefs. The office relationships are also explored, with Pam and Jim’s new romance and Dwight and Angela’s continuing relationship.

While there were many funny moments, overall, I was disappointed. Mostly, I am worried with the direction the show seems headed – increasingly ridiculous situations (mostly with Michael) that test the audience’s willingness to accept as reality.

Thursday’s show started with a bang (literally), as Michael ran over Meredith with his car. This was a shocking, and hilarious, moment that provided more than enough material for a solid main story for the episode. But instead of solid, we got silliness such as Dwight killing Angela’s cat by stuffing it in the freezer, Michael carb-loading before a fun run by eating a tray of Fettuccine Alfredo, Dwight offering to pull the plug on Meredith who is hospitalized with a broken pelvis, Pam entering Michael’s office and seeing his penis as he changed clothes and Creed, Stanley and Oscar taking a cab to finish the fun run. Taking a cab to finish a race??? Haven’t we seen this on Who’s the Boss, Punky Brewster and Full House? With the exception of Andy’s “bloody nipples” running gag, which was great, I felt the whole fun run part of the episode was weak.
While The Office has always had it’s over-the-top moments, what has made it so brilliant up to now was the clueless, yet believable, behavior of Michael which led to many squirm worthy awkward situations.

The Office audience is an intelligent one, we don’t need to see anvils dropped on heads to make us laugh.

This post was Authored by Joe Purcell, Our Resident Authority on all things The Office